'Hardbody' meets hardball at Pads tonight

Team from Playhouse musical is scheduled to do pregame honors

Video preview

A couple of enduring American traditions will come together at Petco Park tonight: baseball and wacky, publicity-driven contests.

Cast members from La Jolla Playhouse's world-premiere musical "Hands on a Hardbody" - a show based on a real-life endurance competition once run by a Texas car dealership - will hit the field to sing the national anthem before the Padres take on the Colorado Rockies. (Game time is 7:05 p.m.)

To top things off, the show's co-composer, Trey Anastasio, will toss the ceremonial first pitch. And it's only too bad the Miami Marlins just left town, because it would've been entirely fitting for the frontman of Phish (the massively popular Vermont jam band that Anastasio co-founded) to pitch to the Fish.

If you can't make it to the ballpark, the Playhouse's video preview of "Hardbody" (which we've reposted above) should give you a taste of the songs (and singers) behind the musical. (The musical is now in previews; it opens Saturday.)

And speaking of the Playhouse: The theater also has just announced casting for "Blood and Gifts," the J.T. Rogers play that hits La Jolla next month.